I am curious whether immunotherapy offers a cure or if it is a long term treatment. I am msi-h and am looking into immunotherapy for recent growth spread in lymph nodes near the pancreas. I live in Canada and a fair distance from any centres running immunotherapy trials. I would be willing to travel for a while but I can envision doing that the rest of my life. I know every person responds differently and that immunotherapy isn't even guaranteed to work on msi-h but I am curious if it does work is it an on going treatment or is there an end site. I don't see my oncologist for another week (perks of rural living - dr is only here once a month for a week:) so I am just looking into things to talk about with her.

If you're MSI-high, you don't need to be in a clinical trial to get immunotherapy. At least in the states, Keytruda is already approved for MSI-high CRC (and all MSI-high cancers). If you can't get it in Canada, any cancer hospital in the states should be able to give it to you. The only hurdle is you need to have failed other treatment already. Keytruda isn't approved as a first line treatment.

Lee wrote:Don't know if you've been following Celine's journey, butt at one time she was given months to live, today she is NED. Her thread is helping other people get to the trial that saved her life.

Thanks, Lee. Yes, I have been following Celine's story through that lengthy thread. I guess I was wondering more about KEytruda or Opdivo since those are therapies that might be available to me through trials in Canada. There is a trial for immunotherapy in a neighbouring province that looks interesting. But I don't know if it is doable for the rest of my life. Sometimes it is easier to make decisions for a specific period. I can see traveling for 16 hours every 2 weeks if there is an end date. Indefinitely is a little harder to think about.

ACPdiddy wrote:If you're MSI-high, you don't need to be in a clinical trial to get immunotherapy. At least in the states, Keytruda is already approved for MSI-high CRC (and all MSI-high cancers). If you can't get it in Canada, any cancer hospital in the states should be able to give it to you. The only hurdle is you need to have failed other treatment already. Keytruda isn't approved as a first line treatment.

Unfortunately Keytruda isn't approved in Canada yet. Part of the reason for this post is to learn more about immunotherapy. I looked up the cost of Keytruda and it looks like it is around 150,000 a year. So I am wondering if it works, would that be after a set amount of rounds. I definitely couldn't afford 150,000 a year for very long. I think I count as having failed Folfox since a distant lymph node didn't respond to treatment and it appears I now have several that are enlarged. I am trying to gather information to go over with the surgeon and the oncologist that I will be speaking with next week.

Thanks, CRguy. I am going to ask about the POG thing at my next appointment with the oncologist. I am getting quite the list of things to review with her. This is the trial that I thought looked the most promising in terms of immunotherapy and relative closeness. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02060188 There were a bunch more in Ontario and Quebec but if there is no end point it seems overwhelming to think of moving or being away from home. Nothing from Vancouver stood out to me but Edmonton and Vancouver are about the same distance away from me. And I have family in Edmonton that could be a support to me. But as I said before I have no idea what the drs are going to say to me. Still waiting to hear back from the surgeon in Vancouver and my oncologist (also Vancouver based) isn't coming up to Prince George until next week. I am thankful that my town isn't under evacuation order from wildfire but travel at this time is pretty crazy.

Stewsbetty wrote:[ . . . Unfortunately Keytruda isn't approved in Canada yet. Part of the reason for this post is to learn more about immunotherapy. . . .

Gee sure hope you can get on board on Keytruda. Not sure if you've been following BeansMama journey. All traditional chemos have failed her. Thanks to Keytruda, she has gone from *not* a candidate for surgery to now she has a surgery date with intend of a "cure".

Stewsbetty wrote: But as I said before I have no idea what the drs are going to say to me. Still waiting to hear back from the surgeon in Vancouver and my oncologist (also Vancouver based) isn't coming up to Prince George until next week. I am thankful that my town isn't under evacuation order from wildfire but travel at this time is pretty crazy. Beth

Province on FIRE ! ....again !!!!!

Have you checked out Kelowna ?????They do have a good BCCA site there, so that may be closer still ????A lot of the heavy duty research etc. is out of BCCA Vancouver/UBC .... BUTT all the centers have their own strengths and are all linked.If your Oncs are coming from Vancouver, is there an option for you to be transferred to Kelowna BCCA ???????My Dad's Onc (Kelowna) was PMH trained as a thoracic specialist and I see your link also shows PMH as a recruiting siteso there may be a contact in Kelowna as well ??????????